Martian Meals Ideas, Tips & Guides

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

“Bugging in” is a term that Preppers use to describe sheltering in place – staying at home during a potentially threatening situation. It’s the opposite of “bugging out”, where you grab your pre-packed bag of essentials and leave home to find a more secure location to weather the storm. 

In 2004, ESA challenged French chefs to come up with gourmet recipes for space travellers on Mars and other planets. They were limited by what could feasibly be grown on Mars, with extra ingredients (such as extra vegetables, herbs, oil, butter, seasonings and sugar) shipped from Earth.

A standard mission to the International Space Station is six months long. About nine months before launch, each astronaut tastes the 200 or so items on NASA’s space menu and chooses what they want to be sent into space for them. Nutritionists weigh in to make sure they get the nutrients they need, and astronauts can take some ‘bonus’ treats with them. These can be off-the-shelf foods, and astronauts from different nationalities often have special space meals prepared for them. (Tim Peake got a bacon sandwich, beef stew with truffles and sausages and mash, courtesy of Heston Blumenthal.)

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

A few years ago, a pair of New York artists Heidi Neilson and Douglas Paulson started a fun project called “Menu for Mars“, aiming to figure out what astronauts might eat on Mars. Every month for a year, the Menu for Mars Supper Club met at a New York restaurant, “gathering recommendations, suggestions and opinions from restaurateurs about what food they would prepare on Mars”. During these research missions, the group hosted a wide range of experts and learned about related topics such as horticulture and composting, nutrition and culinary anthropology. Mission 3, the Meal Replacement Picnic, was particularly gruelling. They sampled an array of meal replacement products and found most of them to be barely edible (and certainly not a replacement for a genuine meal). Afterwards, they had to send someone to get emergency sandwiches.

When I was a kid, I really didn’t like soup. I especially didn’t like soup that came out of a can (I still don’t, really), but I did like Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup. Not obsessively or anything, but it was quite nice. But as an adult I developed a cow’s milk intolerance and so cream of tomato soup was off the menu.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

Continuing on from musing about what we would eat on Mars, Ryan and I are pondering what we’d have for Christmas dinner on Mars. I mean, at the moment, plans for Christmas are so far up in the air that we may as well have it on Mars.

The latest Cargo Dragon resupply mission docked with the ISS on Saturday, and the crew have been unpacking essential supplies. Their fresh food treats this time are Gala apples, navel oranges, cherry tomatoes, onions, lemons, mini peppers and ripe avocados.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

Hello and welcome to Meals on Mars, your weekly imaginarium devoted to the future of food on Earth and beyond!

This is one of a series of posts looking at what we might eat on Mars, where most food would have to be shelf-stable, tinned or freeze-dried. You can find other posts on this topic under the Martian Meals tag.

I read an anecdote (and it bothers me now that I can’t remember where) about a crew on the ISS who looked at the food supplies on board. They called down to Mission Control and said, “We have lots of packets of Grits in stock, but no one likes them. Can we just toss them out?”

Hopefully, one of the good things to come out of our current situation will be a greater reverence for our food, and a greater understanding of where it comes from. After the initial surges subsided, it was possible once again to buy pasta, UHT milk and even toilet roll. But since then there have been other shortages. Yeast, as everyone tries their hand at making bread at home. Icing sugar*, caster sugar, brown sugar as people brush up on their baking skills generally. And, of course, flour. We are told that this is all due to a rise in demand. That there is plenty of flour, but millers just can’t put any more of it in small bags. Either because they don’t have the capacity, or because they don’t have enough bags.

Ryan and I are experimenting with ‘Martian’ recipes – meals that could be made entirely with shelf-stable ingredients (plus the occasional homegrown vegetable). We cooked Martian Gammon Stew in the slow cooker, and were surprised at how nice it turned out to be!

What will the first astronauts to set foot on Mars eat? NASA is putting some serious thought into that question. Astronauts on the ISS can choose from around 200 different items on the American menu, all shelf-stable, long-life foods. The problem is that a trip to Mars will take two to three years, and the foods currently available will start to lose their nutrient value before the astronauts get home.

One of the things that fascinate me is how astronauts from different cultures take different foods into space. When French astronaut Thomas Pesquet blasts off to the ISS later this month, for example, he’s taking four French meals specially created by a Michelin-starred chef. (Including a truffled pie of potatoes and onions from Roscoff, slow-cooked beef with mushroom sauce, almond tart with caramelised pears, and a freeze-dried cherry tomato dish. Heston Blumenthal created the first space bacon sandwich for Tim Peake.)

In November 2021, Heinz announced to the world that they had successfully created a high-quality ketchup made from tomatoes grown in Martian conditions.

Today is World Nutella Day, which seems like an excellent opportunity to explore the time that a spoonful of chocolate hazelnut spread nearly caused an interplanetary incident.

Header image: Growing food in space will rely on innovative agricultural technologies. (NASA)

Kamran Mahroof, University of Bradford and Liz Breen, University of Bradford